Saturday, August 16, 2014

Reason Behind Cha-Cha: Pres. Aquino Fears Jail

Ever since I was espousing in this column that to get rid of
that present 12 million unemployed Filipinos, over abused Overseas Filipino
Workers (OFW), and the moral backlash brought by the migration of Filipinos
abroad where the families at home committed immoralities and indulging to
illegal drugs because no one watch them, the government should open its
restricted xenophobic economic 60-40% provision that favors the financially
overstretch Filipino oligarchs in the Constitution.

My usual argument: More foreign investment in our country
means more jobs. More jobs means OFWs from Libya, and other countries would no
longer be vulnerable to rape and other abuses. Husband or wife does not resort
to infidelity with fellow OFWs or the woman or man next door in the
Philippines, or sons and daughters don’t become drug addict or impregnated at
an early age because a parent or parents are there to watch them grow.

My usual poser: Why the standard of living of a Thai is much
better than those of the Filipinos who in the 1970s have almost the same number
of population? Aside from their aggressive government sponsored family planning
program, they snared, according to the World Investment Report, last year
$12.95 billion of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) while the Philippines contented
herself with a minuscule $3.9 billion in the same year.

Now it seems that I digress to why I have a mixed reaction
on the president’s amenability for Cha-Cha. Our balding president smarted as
seen on his State of the Nation Address (SONA) how he was being treated by the
13-0 of the Supreme Court because of his Disbursement Acceleration Program that
jerk-up, er, perk- up by more than 6% the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

It means the 13-0 DAP’s decision of the high tribunal is the
Sword of Damocles that hangs above his head.

It is a threat to his limb because whether he likes it or
not he goes to jail in a non –bailable crime of plunder through technical
malversation because he usurped the power of congress to allocate the DAP’s
P177 billion funds and channeled to other economic stimulating projects.

“But he did not pocket any of the P177 billion. He did not
profit for himself on the DAP” Objected recently to me by a lawyer when we were
conversing.

“That’s beside the point. What we are seeing here is the probable cause for technical
malversation as provided in the Revised Penal Code and the Special Law on
Plunder found by the Ombudsman and the Sandigabayan, and the warrant of arrest issued
by the latter against former president
Aquino in 2016. It was just like Gloria Arroyo who was thrown in the calaboose
without bail”.

President Aquino, a person who dreaded to tinker with the
Constitution, dread to think of that day he would be rubbing with his hands the iron
grills of the detention center for years as he waited for the Sandiganbayan and his pet
peeves the Supreme Court decide for the case thus his amenability on the
amendments or revision of the Constitution.

With his overwhelming allies in the Houses of
Representatives and Senate dependent on the opiate called pork-barrel (who said there was no pork barrel? I’ll discuss it here later), I
am sure Constituent Assembly will be formed soon to change the Constitution.

***

Forget about the Beatles in their Hard Days Night’s album belting: Money Can’t Buy My Love.
Money is everything that even Manny
Pangilinan of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone is in a quandary how to
resuscitate his bleeding TV-5 network tens of millions of pesos against the
competition given to it by ABS-CBN and GMA-7 TV networks.

Money is pecuniae
obediunt omnia (money rules the
world) in Latin that you now understand since I put its English translation.

“Without money or S.O.P through cut from the solons' favorite private contractor who get it from the pork, congressmen and senators would no longer
support the president all the way like impeaching the chief justice of the
Supreme Court and even those present justices in case the president make his
clarion call to his allies in Congress,” I told my errand boy Procopio Matulis
when we were drinking liquor – San Miguel Lights for my gofer while Mortz baby
imbibed Emperador Brandy as my blood pressure shot up lately to 140/100.

But does pork barrel still exist even the high court said it
was illegal and unconstitutional?

Pork is alive and kicking according to Commission on Higher
Education (CHEd) Chair Patricia Lichuanan and Health Undersecretary Janet Guarin.
Both said, as taped by the staff of ACT Teachers Congressman Antonio Tinio that
all the P14 million budget for scholarship of the Commission on Higher
Education in every congressional district, and all the Medical Assistance
Program (MAP) in every government hospital have been intended for the
recommendation of the congressman who are the real recipient of that project.

“There are many people out there, who really think I now
have P4.1-billion new scholarships. They don’t think it’s the PDAF, they don’t
think it’s going to you (lawmakers) … And then I’m supposed to tell them ‘No!
No! Don’t do that, because actually the congressmen are all going to get it,’”
Licuanan said.

“We have to go
through this kind of semblance. We understand each other. I really want to
cooperate.”

She also confided that her regional directors actually
thought they had an extra P14 million in scholarship grants for each district
so she had to tell them that this was “really for the congressmen,” as written
on August 12 by the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s titled “Party-list rep presents ‘smoking gun’ on
pork”.

The same article said: “Tinio also revealed a recording of
Garin, a former Iloilo representative, during a meeting between officials of the
Department of Health (DOH) and House members last May 20 to iron out the “chaos
and confusion” on the medical assistance program (MAP) of lawmakers inserted in
the 2014 budget.

Garin said the MAP would only be available to individuals
recommended by lawmakers or their designated staff”.

***

With pork still around at the behest of the president expect
the unexpected in Philippine politics as the president march for survival in amending the constitution to extend his term, and try to clip some of of the
powers of the Supreme Court as it becomes a threat to his future freedom.

My poser here: Would the president be successful on this
brinkmanship?

(You can read my selected columns at
http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can
send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com).